Re: Rigsdal Player Heroes

From: bryan_thx <bethexton_at_fK1q72K0po7H_6qx66yJRegBb5ixYxaqjTK1urcoNngr4hDBKxkYknmvbl56AlY9WA>
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:42:31 -0000

wrote:
>
> > P.s. I'm not looking for YGMV answers but a picture of what a
> Rigsdal player
> > hero might be like. All opinions will be valued.
>
> Rigsdal is the Orlanthi Pole Star. He's a minor god with very few
> Orlanthi initiates and not likely to be detailed in the Sartar Book
> for Second Edition, but he's easily enough added. The cult is tiny
> (probably less than 100 members in all of Sartar) and likely centered
> on Lookout Hill in Sartar. A Rigsdal initiate will have a strange
> (for the Orlanthi) connection with the Sky Dome and stellar phenomena
> (other than the Ring of Orlanth, which all Orlanthi revere).
>
> Rigsdal has a strong but curious connection to Orlanth. For example,
> Orlanth's Ring ascends the Sky Dome to Rigsdal's Fortress before
> departing to the Underworld and Rigsdal is invoked in certain Orlanthi
> rituals associated with Orlanth's Ring.
>
> As for the personality of those folk dedicated to the Pole Star, I
> suspect they tend to be loyal, honest, and pure - like his Runes.
>
> Jeff
>
Yes, as is outlined at moderate (1 page) length in Storm Tribe. Which would still be the current view of the cults for use in HQ games, right?

One possibility there, as an option, is that Rigsdal can also be a sub-cult of Elmal or Orlanth. I forget if ST mentions which aspect, but I know I had an Orlanth Allfather Rigsdal initiate in a sadly short lived PBEM game—he was a herder in a hard pressed clan, who was more worried about protecting the herds from attack than in anything else, but I expected him to switch fully to Rigsdal at some point in the future most likely.

>From the above, obviously I think that Rigsdal can be a fine player
hero cult, but it is no doubt easier in some games than others. In a game based mostly around the clan (and at the initiate level, where the requirements are less strict), I think such is very easily playable. I think their awareness side would imply a certain degree of getting out and about the tula and neighboring lands to know what could be coming at them in the future. Also I seem to recall in Storm Tribe (maybe in the Elmal write up?) mention of tribal `star watches' that provide some degree of occasional night time patrols, which Rigsdali would probably take part in too.

 For a more wandering adventurer type of game I think it would simply require some good hero creation background. Most Rigsdali don't do this, but obviously there is a reason that this one does. I doubt there is any general classification of wandering Rigsdali, but the list of personal motivations is no doubt very long. Commitment to another character, in initiation had visions of a fallen star that he's trying to find, his clan is shattered and he's trying to find out where he belongs now, and all sorts of other ideas.

However one point about Rigsdal, that I realized while playing one. All those awareness abilities sound great, but from a story perspective they are maybe not ideal. It is much harder to make a contest about noticing or detecting something exciting (especially in the case where the player does not know that there is anything to see/hear), and it makes it harder to spring surprises on the players (or even to give them that feeling that something could jump out at them at any moment), which can limit one handy narrator tool.